


so i'll grasp the echoes of your sympathy

by ssilverarrowss



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, Issues With Commitment, Longing, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:58:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5034664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssilverarrowss/pseuds/ssilverarrowss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis turns away, tries not to look at the crease in Nico’s brow, tongue caught between his teeth as his lips part with something akin to loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so i'll grasp the echoes of your sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the recent Mercedes Constructor’s Championship celebrations. Title from 'Mean To Me' by Delilah.

They’ve won.

They’ve won, but Nico doesn’t feel like a winner.

Nico tries to smile around the hollow in his chest, the metallic taste of irony in his mouth, because he’s a team player, and that’s what’s expected of him.

They press glasses of champagne between their fingers, and a bubbling curl of hysteria rises in Nico’s throat and chokes him as he watches the celebrations, because he knows with a cruel certainty that he doesn’t belong here.

Nico breathes and smiles, laughter tugging at his ribs, but it’s mechanical. He drifts like a ghost, neither here nor there, rootless and overlooked.

Because this isn’t his achievement, not really, and the truth is sharp and bitter, like nails scratching down his back, pulling the skin from the bones, and it cuts through him and resonates, and quakes, like a tremor.

They’re not here for _him_.

*

“I just want to mention too what a great teammate Nico is.” Lewis says to the press, sympathy spilling from every bone, trying so hard to be tender.

“He’s had a much tougher season so far than I have but has been a real team player throughout and I know he’ll be fighting back through the many years to come in which we’ll no doubt be competing hard against each other.”

 _I don’t want your pity,_ Nico thinks, and it’s broken and forlorn, because in the end, he knows that’s all he’s going to get.

Nico wants to believe him – more than anything, he wants the words to flow through his veins, spill across his skin and inhabit his lungs, but he doesn’t think he can, not anymore, not after everything they’ve been through.

It feels as if Lewis’s words have been cursed with dishonesty, crafted to hurt and designed to twist around in Nico’s raw wounds like a knife.

Nico and Lewis were equals, once. But it feels like a distant memory, it’s faded with time, and now all they have is _this._

And Nico supposes he’s to blame for this, really, because for years, he’s made Lewis the centerpiece – he put him first, when all he could be is second to him, and now it’s finally caught up with them. In the end, the center couldn’t hold, no matter how much Nico had wanted it to.  

Lewis is the focus, the center of attention, luring people in with his sheer force of gravity, and tethering them to himself with a natural ease. He exudes a certain warmth, Nico supposes, found in the corners of his lips as they turn upwards and form a smile, tongue pink as he self-consciously runs it over the gap between his front teeth.

 ****It’s hard to resist him.

Nico knows this better than most.

*

“I miss you, Nico.” Lewis murmurs when they’re alone, the words spilling from his lips like an afterthought. “I miss _us_.”

Nico’s eyes flicker over to him, and he struggles to hold himself together, unravelling slowly, ribcage splintering at the seams, heart beating loud in his ears, a rushing flood that he almost can’t breathe around.

Lewis’s lips curl into a small smile, dark eyes holding a warmth that makes Nico’s chest ache as a stab of faded remembrance passes between them like a ghost. His skin glows fluorescent in this light, Nico thinks, and he’s overwhelmed with a desire to hold him.

Nico’s fingers curl into a fist, nails biting into his skin, because _he’s drunk_ echoes around his skull like a warning. Lewis doesn’t say anything as he looks at Nico from under his lashes, lips parted, curled around something like uncertainty, somehow softer than Nico’s seen him in months.

Not that Nico’s seen Lewis around all that much. Because Lewis is good at that: putting distance between them – oceans, continents, timezones – so his eyes don’t stray, don’t linger on Nico for a second longer than necessary. 

A sigh presses its way out of Nico’s lips as he exhales slowly, deliberately, because Nico misses him too, the soft brush of skin against skin, the purple pressure of Lewis’s lips on Nico’s collarbones as his fingers curl around the back of his neck.

It hurts, but it’s nothing new. The geographical distance is just a by-product of the cracks that tore them apart a long time ago.

Sometimes, Nico finds himself wishing, longing for Lewis to kiss him like he used to, touch him like he used to, run the tip of his nose over Nico’s jaw like he used to.

When Lewis blinks and walks away, Nico’s fingers tug at his lip absentmindedly as he wonders if he’s ever going to taste Lewis again.

*

They stand on the balcony of a hotel in London, the team’s party in full swing in the lounge down below, midnight spilling around them, the city pulsating with light and colour beneath them. The night air is cold and sharp, biting at Nico’s cheeks, and he shivers, twisting his hands into the pockets of his jacket. 

“I didn’t know you smoke.” Nico says, cold air seeping out of his throat, raising an eyebrow as he watches Lewis light a cigarette.  

“I don’t,” Lewis shrugs, exhaling curls of white smoke into the air.

Nico looks at him then – _really_ looks at him. Wonders if he ever really knew Lewis at all.

There’s a sense of familiarity in the curve of his lips, the slope of his nose, the chocolate brown of his eyes. Nico can still remember the way his lip would catch on the gap between Lewis’s teeth, how they’d pull away, flushed and breathless as they pressed their foreheads together. 

His hands are familiar, too, calloused from the years spent fixing up karts, fingers smeared with motor oil, yet somehow soft and gentle as his thumb brushed over Nico’s cheekbone.

But when Nico looks at him now, it’s through a prism of memories. 

When Nico looks at Lewis, he sees a stranger.

“I meant what I said.” Lewis says quietly after he stubs out his cigarette. His tongue flicks out to wet his lips as his eyes meet Nico’s, searching them for disappointment, or hurt, or reciprocation.

Nico nods.

“It’s hard to believe, though. After everything.” He says carefully.  _You hurt me,_ he doesn’t say, leaves it unspoken.

“I know.” Lewis says. “But I do. I miss you.”

And Nico–

Nico doesn’t know what to think.

“I didn’t need to hear it.” Nico says, and there’s a bitterness in his voice, because nonchalance seems to work just fine for Lewis, and maybe Nico wants to see him hurt like he did.

But that’s the thing about Lewis.

He _doesn’t._

He wears indifference like a second skin, and jealousy stabs at Nico’s bones because that’s what makes him a winner, he knows. 

And Nico–

Nico’s always loved Lewis too much for his own good.

“Maybe I needed to say it.” Lewis replies but it’s detached and abrasive, toying, testing the boundaries.

“Don’t play games with me.” Nico warns, but his voice catches, and it comes out as more of a plea than anything else, really.

Lewis laughs, and it’s humourless and spiteful between the lines. He opens his mouth as if to say something else, and Nico waits for the words to tumble from his lips, something snide about the Championship, about bad luck and how there’s always next year. He can see them forming, bubbling in Lewis’s mouth and hanging on the tip of his tongue, but he thinks better of it and says nothing.

Lewis’s eyes shine with intoxication as they frame Nico with something between disdain and desire, and it’s dangerous, Nico knows. His fingers twist in Nico’s white shirt, and he smirks, pressing himself closer, because Lewis wants to fuck with Nico, even if it rips him apart. 

And it’s cruel, so cruel, because _I miss you_ doesn’t mean _I want you_ , and Nico’s heart tugs and breaks and sinks because really, he’s always been a fool for Lewis.

(But maybe it’s better to be cruel than to be weak.)

Mouths and tongues and fingers tangle, not quite together, but closer than they’d been in months. 

Confusion throbs at the base of Nico’s skull, thick and heavy, because god knows what they are anymore, always caught between hating and loving, clawing and wanting.

Lewis’s fingers graze Nico’s pale skin, and a breathless whimper pours from his lips because that’s how this works. Lewis knows how to touch to make Nico fall apart, and it’s toxic but it’s sweet and Nico lets Lewis love him any way he wants just to hold him for a minute longer. 

(Nico has become good at prolonging the inevitable.)

*

Lewis presses him into the sheets, licking at his collarbones as Nico’s fingers drag themselves around the dark expanse of his skin. Nico closes his eyes and he can feel Lewis on his tongue, across his teeth, can feel him moving beneath his hands; and he’s drowning in him, in his blood and in his bones, in everything he is and isn’t, because he’s here _now_ , and that’s all Nico clings to. It’s all he has left.

“Lewis.” Nico’s lips are at Lewis’s neck; he breathes, and it spills out like benediction. 

Nico doesn’t say _I love you, I need you, I want you._ It’s just a name, just a handful of letters, but to Nico, it’s everything.

A pause, and Lewis’s breath hitches.

“I know.” And it’s spoken so softly, so kindly. 

Lewis’s lips ghost across Nico’s skin, gasping, fingers entwined and thighs brushing together and Nico syncopates his skin to Lewis’s heart beating, because he doesn’t want to forget. He whimpers into Lewis’s mouth as they come undone, lungs heaving, ribs aching. 

*

“Stay,” Nico says quietly, watching with sad eyes as Lewis shifts, moves to pull his grey t-shirt over his head. 

There’s silence, and the room is filled with the sounds of heartbeats and breathing and anticipation. 

“I can’t.” The words tumble from Lewis’s lips too quickly. He breathes in, breathes out. “My plane leaves in two hours.”

“You can.” Nico’s throat clicks. It’s a defeated little murmur. “You’re just choosing not to.”

Lewis’s shoulders slump as a heavy sigh wracks his frame. There’s an apology set in the wringing of his hands. He twists his body around to face Nico, dark eyes haunted as he reaches out to cup Nico’s face in his hand. Lewis’s fingers tremble against Nico’s skin.

“I can’t.” He says, and it’s broken. Something desperate floods his skin. “I don’t know how.”

Nico’s breath catches in his throat as Lewis’s fingertips slip from his cheekbone.

Lewis turns away, tries not to look at the crease in Nico’s brow, tongue caught between his teeth as his lips part with something akin to loss. Lewis feels it, too, as his heart gives a dull thump in the rhythm of _missing, missing, missing._  

“I miss you, too.” Nico confesses, mouth curling around the words in search of liberation, the sound of his own voice echoing back at him as he grips cold sheets, morning spilling across London’s skyline. 

And Nico thinks that his heart–

his heart may be the weakest part of him.


End file.
